Joe Apfelbaum – Better Way

Gary Sanchez

WHY Institute Founder & CEO

Joe Apfelbaum – Better Way

Meet Joe Apfelbaum

Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of Ajax Union, a B2B digital marketing agency based in Brooklyn, NY. Joe is a business strategist, marketing expert and certified Google trainer. He enjoys speaking and writing about marketing, business networking and personal development in his seminars, webinars, and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcasts,The Breakthrough Maze,INC 5000 Podcast and CEO Mojo.

Joe has been featured on popular podcasts including the Entrepreneur.com Podcast and the B2B Revenue Podcast. He is the producer ofGrowTime.tv and has published over 500 MojovationalStreet Talk videos on YouTube.

Joe is a contributing member of Entrepreneurs Organization in Brooklyn, a group with over 12,000 CEOs and an active member of Executives Association, a premier business networking organization in NYC. Joe has lost 95 pounds and kept it off. Joe is a selfie master, he takes 1000 selfies a year with entrepreneurs and makes hundreds of introductions to business professionals in his network. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his purpose, his beautiful amazing kids.

Trying to Find Your Personal Brand

Joe was looking for a way to brand himself.

He had always heard, “You can only grow your business as much as you can grow yourself.” Joe took that to heart and wanted to unearth how he could get more comfortable speaking and being the face of his business. He was afraid of putting his photo online because of the internal fear that people would judge him; the fear and self-doubt hung over his head.

He knew he had to find a better way to get out of his comfort zone.

Joe worked with a coach that took him on a journey of self-discovery to find his strengths, his personal values, the frustrations that hold him back and successes he has experienced. He put it all together which helped him understand himself and answer the question “Who is Joe?”

From Frustration to Acceptance

When Joe finally discovered his WHY, to find a better way and to share it, everything made sense. Joe was often frustrated that he would start things and not finish them. When he got to 80%, he would want to start something else. It was a constant pursuit for a better way – and there is an endless amount of better ways he could find!

Joe felt he always made things more challenging for everyone around him because he was always changing and improving and changing and improving. Do you know someone like this?

Once he discovered his WHY, he started loving himself. He suddenly saw that thing that made him special – his ability to find a better way.

He joined Entrepreneur’s Organization and realized there are a lot of others in the entrepreneurial space who processed things the SAME WAY AS HIM! Joe focused on bringing the right people in to help cover the areas he was not the best at. Their WHY was Joe’s how or what. He realized that he would be successful with the right people around him, and with the WHY as his guide he was successful.

Joe went from seeing his WHY as a curse to seeing it as a wonderful gift – meant to be shared.

Increasing Impact with the WHY

Now, Joe coaches other entrepreneurs so they can have a massive impact in their life. He walks them through:

Creating Awareness

Creating Strategy

Creating Accountability

Joe mentioned, “Once you accept it and get proud of your strengths and weaknesses, you are at your best. You have to know who you are… then your passion and enthusiasm show.”

Transformation is about you being you, but you first have to know who you are. And this is where the WHY comes in to help you know who you are. Know your WHY with the WHY App – or if you already know your WHY, get started on the Personal WHY Formula Course so you can develop your WHY-HOW-WHAT so you have the words to clearly articulate YOU!

When to Step Back

Sometimes, you have to step back if you’re a better way person. You have to let other people take over.

“Micromanage the process not the people” – Joe

Joe had a coach tell him, “Coaching without permission is criticism.” Focusing on this in interactions is a great way to increase empathy!

Joe recommends practicing these steps to increase your empathy:

Mirroring – Repeat back what they said in your own words

Validation – Say that it makes sense they would feel the way

Empathy – Feel what they feel if you were in their shoes

For better way people, the key is to ask permission to gage what people need.

The Endgame For Better Way People

Better way people are constantly looking for a better way. So much so that it can be exhausting. But for better way people to reach the end, they have to say “That’s good enough.” Once you say that, you can turn it over to someone else to handle it.

You have to find where you will feel fulfillment with a good enough mentality, then you can move on to the next thing.

AjaxUnion

AjaxUnion is a Digital Marketing agency that helps B2B companies generate more leads, nurture the leads and take leads from the top of the funnel to the bottom line.

Every business has a marketing funnel, whether you have identified it or not. Ajax helps companies take cold leads from the top of the funnel to the bottom where a few of them will become customers, and we help them keep getting leads into the top of the funnel.

They have serviced over 1,100 companies since they started. In year four they were one of the fastest growing companies in the United States, they doubled their business four years in a row and they were number 178 on the Inc. 5000.

Joe is most proud of his company going from being all things to all people to serving a specific target market. Now, they deliver tremendous value to their customers. Their goal is to be amazing day in and day out!